Laparoscopic surgery is a high technological surgery whereby a hole about 1 cm in size is made in the vicinity of the navel and an operation is performed by inserting a laparoscope through the hole for seeing inside the patient's belly. This medical field is currently experiencing many developments.
The recently developed laparoscopes can provide more clear and enlarged images than those seen by a naked eye and have been developed to allow any surgery using surgical apparatuses specifically invented for the laparoscopes while watching monitors.
Moreover, since the laparoscopic surgery has an operation extent similar to that of an abdominal operation, involves less complications than the abdominal operation, can start to treat the operated region after the surgery in a shorter time than the abdominal operation, and has a capability of maintaining stamina and/or immune function of the patient superior than the abdominal surgery, the laparoscopic surgery can reduce recurrence of cancer in the future. Due to these reasons, the laparoscopic surgery is being gradually authorized as a standard surgical procedure for treatment of colon cancer in U.S.A. and Europe.
However, the laparoscopic surgery is more difficult than the conventional abdominal surgery. The reasons are that apparatuses for the laparoscopic surgery are unfamiliar, the laparoscopic surgery provides only two-dimensional images and mirror images, and a surgeon cannot directly touch the part of the patient that is being operated on.